Iram Siraj is a Professor at the Institute of Education, University of London, and a visiting Professor at the University of Wollongong. She co-led on the Effective Pre-school, Primary, and Secondary Education (EPPSE) longitudinal study, and the highly influential Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years (REPEY) study, which first developed the concept of Sustained Shared Thinking (SST). She is a co-author of the ECERS-E and has published widely on quality, pedagogy, and curriculum.

The sustained shared thinking and emotional well-being (SSTEW) scale is designed to consider some of the intentional and relational pedagogical strategies strongly associated with child outcomes. It considers practice that supports children aged between two and five years of age in developing skills in sustained shared thinking and emotional well-being, as well as developing strong relationships, effective communication and aspects of self-regulation. It is designed to be used for research, self-evaluation and improvement, audit and regulation. Using the SSTEW scale alongside other environment scales (including ECERS-E, ECERS-R or ITERS-R) gives users a more complete picture of what high-quality early childhood education and care can look like. It is aspirational in that it considers high quality pedagogy and practice. It can be used by researchers, heads of centers, managers, teaching staff and practitioners, as well as advisory staff and in professional development.